3. Mr. Dunn heard the engineers discussing the performance of the machine.

4. We want the goods to be delivered in May.

IX. Переведите текст и выполните задания к нему:

The Economic EnvironmentThe economy comprises millions of people and thousands of firms as well as the government and local authorities, all taking decisions about prices and wages, what to buy, sell, produce, export, import and many other matters. All these take a prominent part in shaping the business environment. When the economy is enjoying a boom, firms experience high sales and general prosperity. At such times, unemployment is low and many firms will be investing funds to enable them to produce more. They do this because consumers have plenty of money to spend and firms expect high sales. However, during periods when people have less to spend many firms face hard times as their sales fall. Thus, the economic environment moves into a recession. At that time, total spending declines as income falls and unemployment rises.

Changes in the state of the economy affect all types of business, though the extent to which they are affected varies. In the recession banks suffer badly. Profits decline and, in some cases, losses are incurred. This is because fewer people borrow money from banks, denying them the opportunity to earn interest on loans, and rising proportion of those who borrow defaulted on repayment. These so called «bad debts» cut profit margins substantially.

- Заполните пропуски словами и выражениями из текста: 1. When the economy … firms experience high sales and … .2. The economic environment … into … .3. Changes in the state of the economy … all types of business.4. During a … fewer people borrow money from banks, … them … to earn interest on … .5. So-called “bad debts” cut _________ substantially.- Ответьте на вопросы:1. What does the economy comprise?2. What’s a boom in the economy? What characterizes the state of the economy at that time?3. What happens when the economy moves into a recession?4. What are “bad debts”?5. What happens to some banks and why?

X. Сделайте письменный перевод текста:

What is Economics?

No brief description can offer clear guidance to the content and character of economics, but numerous writers have attempted just that. An especially useless, though once popular, example is: “Economics is what economists do.”

Similarly, a notable economist of the last century Alfred Marshall called economics “a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life”. Another notable Lionel Robbins, in the 1930s, described economics as “the science of choice among scarce means to accomplish unlimited ends.” (This “definition” has considerable currency still, though no one seems to know just what choices, if any, it might exclude from consideration).

During much of modern history, especially in the nineteenth century, economics was called simply “the science of wealth”. Less seriously, George Bernard Shaw was credited in the early 1900s with the witticism that “economics is the science whose practitioners, even if all were laid end to end, would not reach agreement.”

We may make better progress by comparing economics with other subjects. Like every other discipline that attempts to explain observed facts (e.g., physics, astronomy, meteorology), economics comprises a vast collection of descriptive material organized around a central core of theoretical principles. The manner in which theoretical principles are formulated and used in applications varies greatly from one science to another. Like psychology, economics draws much of its theoretical core from intuition, casual observation, and “common knowledge about human nature”. Like astronomy, economics is largely nonexperimental. Like meteorology (also largely nonexperimental), economics is relatively inexact, as is weather forecasting. Like particle physics and molecular biology, economics deals with an extraordinary array of closely interrelated phenomena (as do sociology and social psychology). Like such disciplines as art, fantasy writing, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, and the like, economics attracts different people for different reasons: “One person’s meat is another person’s poison.” Though all disciplines differ, all are similar in one aspect: all are meant to convey an interesting, persuative and intellectually satisfying story about selected aspects of experience. As Einstein once put it: “Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense experience corresponded to a logical uniform system of thought.”